a small kindness
by nathan-p
Summary: No matter who they belong to, dogs have a way of understanding each other. Dylan finds a little solace and a crumb of humanity in an unexpected place, which is to say, anywhere near him.


"Hello, Dylan."

Dylan opens his eyes and looks at the man speaking to him - blond hair, grey eyes, severe uniform, and what the fuck, he's wearing gloves, black leather. Could be worse, he thinks - could be someone with a syringe of sedative, like yesterday.

But there's a gun on his belt. Shit.

"What do you want?" he asks tiredly. He keeps waking up in different places than where he went to sleep; when he fell asleep he was in an actual bed, and now he's in an uncomfortable wooden chair with his wrists roped together.

"To talk." He grins, showing sharp teeth. "My name is Omega, by the way," he offers.

"I don't know where they are," Dylan rasps. His throat is dry. He'd sell his soul for a glass of water. You know, if clones even have souls.

Omega doesn't even blink. He tugs a chair toward him from where it's standing at the side of the room, spins it around to sit with the back resting against his chest. "Who's 'they'?" he inquires politely. "I'm interested in _you_."

Dylan's too tired of this to even raise an eyebrow. "Bullshit." He glances at the gun on Omega's hip. "You gonna use that?"

"On you? I hope I won't have to." His smile is less sharp, more soft.

Dylan summons up his last reserves of inner strength and looks Omega straight in the eye. "I don't like it. Ditch the gun and I'll talk."

The smile doesn't change. "Technically I can't remove my sidearm while I'm on duty," he says. "But I can do something else. Hold still, please."

Dylan tenses, but there's not much he can really do to _move_out of the chair as Omega gets up and comes around behind him, kneeling on the concrete with a soft sound of metal brushing against metal. A blade touches his wrist, not hard enough to cut, but hard enough that he can feel how sharp it is. He gasps. Shit. What's happening?

Omega touches his shoulder with one cool leather-gloved hand. "Please. Hold still."

That only makes him more conscious of the little twitches in his hands and feet, or the cramps in his wings. Dammit.

The knife - it's got to be a knife, he remembers seeing a sheath in Omega's belt - moves on his wrist, and the rope holding him to the chair falls away.

Omega rises to his feet (Dylan can hear him breathing, the rustle of his clothes, the squeak of his boots - tooclosetooclosetooclose) and takes his seat again. "Better?"

"Much." Dylan brings his hands in front of him, rubs his wrists. They're friction-burnt and pink, but not actually bleeding. Reflexively, he brings one wrist to his mouth and licks it. He doesn't have much saliva, so it probably won't work, but...

The skin begins to heal and fade to his natural skin color, and it itches like hell though he knows better than to scratch.

Meanwhile, Omega is looking at him like he's just burst into flames, his head tilted slightly in curiosity.

Dylan does the other wrist, tongue darting out of his mouth to spread his healing saliva over the abrasions on his soft skin, and he grimaces when the motion tugs at the edges of a cut at the corner of his mouth. He doesn't remember getting it (maybe when his captors were slapping him around when he first got here?), and it seems to be infected, so there's not much even his miracle spit can do.

He's kind of a wreck, actually. He can feel another sore spot just beyond the reach of his tongue on his cheek, and he's bruised everywhere.

Omega, strangely, looks concerned. He leans forward in his chair, and one hand comes up to touch Dylan's face - the leather is cool against his skin, and it smells much better than the faint trace of cleaning products that's been giving him a constant headache since he woke up here. Omega himself doesn't smell like anything in particular - clean laundry, soap, a faint tang of metal.

His hand wraps around Dylan's chin, and Omega studies him with those keen eyes. If Dylan has a soul, he can see it.

Dylan sees his own reflection in Omega's pupils. He looks... not frightened. Resigned, maybe.

Maybe there's something wrong with him, but he'd rather have Omega and whoever he's working for than whoever has him now. Mainly because Omega actually seems to give a fuck about him.

He might be faking it, and probably is, but it's nice to have someone at least pretending to care about him.

Omega lets go of his chin and sits back, the chair creaking under his weight. "Hmm. Why would they do such things to you, do you think?"

"_What_?" OK, now he's just not making any sense.

"You're very valuable, Dylan," says Omega. "And your old master was quite innovative in his way. We'd like to study his work - and you are the prime example."

"What kind of study?" Dylan says, dropping his eyes from Omega's face. There's a flush of heat lurking beneath the skin of his cheeks.

Omega waves one hand negligently. "We monitor you on a half-yearly basis to ensure you're not breaking down. You'll probably live with one of our staff. I'm not in charge of it."

"Will I see Max again?"

Omega's eyebrows lower, his expression darkens. "No. No one knows where she is."

Something untenses in Dylan's stomach. "Thank you." An urge blossoms in the back of his head, a vague memory of what other people do when they're grateful, and he leans forward to embrace Omega: _thank you thank you thank you._

Omega is unmoving, tense, and Dylan blushes as he sits back in his chair again. He can hear Doctor Hans's voice in his memory: _You're not programmed for spontaneity, Dylan._ He doesn't even remember what he was being chided for that time, but he knows that what the doctor said is true: he's just not capable of making his own decisions. Not well.

Omega looks slightly puzzled, his brow furrowed before he speaks. "I thought you were designed as her… 'perfect other half', no?"

That's what his programming says, yes – _stay with her_, it orders him, _protect her, love her_ – but he's more than _just_ his programming. His hindbrain was perfectly satisfied with staying at Max's side, neurons pumping out dopamine and serotonin to make him docile and happy to be with her, but his conscious mind rejected being chained to her. The hindbrain recognized her familiar scent, her warmth, her voice and was soothed; the conscious mind heard her hatred, her rejection of someone who wasn't Fang.

His brain was molded into this shape early, and even Max's screaming rage at him could not undo the conditioning that flooded his system with pleasure when he was at her side, and made him miserable when he wasn't. He could have fought the conditioning, forced himself away from her to keep her happy, and supposedly fulfilled his ultimate imperative – but his conditioning isn't that sophisticated. On the level of Max, he doesn't – can't - function as a man. He's barely at the level of a guard dog - _stay with her, she'll be happy when I'm with her, guard her, keep her safe –_ and he has to forcibly remind himself that she hates him.

He struggles for words to tell Omega this, words the soldier boy will understand.

"I was... programmed that way," he says at last.

His eyes are steady, a little curiosity in the way his eyebrows tilt and then smooth out.

He looks at Dylan for a moment with the flat patience of a guard dog, then smiles a liar's smile.

"I know what you mean."

* * *

The next time he wakes up (in a bed, will wonders never cease) there's a chipped glass of water on the floor where he can reach it.

It's the little things that keep him sane.

* * *

_I am His Highness' dog at Kew;_

_Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?_

(Epigram, engraved on the Collar of a Dog which I gave to his Royal Highness - Alexander Pope)

* * *

note: Yes, _again_, another thing I found in my documents. Most of this was written very quickly about a year and a half ago, so I took the liberty to polish it up a little.


End file.
